Baritone to Perform Classical Music, Spirituals

Seasoned performer, Stephen Salters, baritone will perform as Oklahoma Baptist University's Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts' guest artist, Thursday, March 23. The concert will be at 7:30 p.m. in the university's Yarborough Auditorium.

Salters' repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music and includes the great Mozartian roles such as Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva and Guglielmo as well as roles in works by Bellini, Donzetti, Gluck and Handel.

A native of Milford, Conn. and a graduate of Boston University, Salters was the first prizewinner in the Walter W. Naumburg 1999 Vocal Competition.

He also was the national winner of the Leontyne Price Vocal Arts Competition, national finalist of the 1996 Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions, first place winner of the 1996 International Puccini-Licia Albanese Competition, and first place winner of the 1996 Queen Elisabeth International Competition of Singing.

He has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, the orchestra of St. Luke's at Caramoor under Will Crutchfield, the Opera Theater of St. Louis under Robert Spano, and the Boston Lyric Opera under Stephen Lord.

He made his European operatic debut with the National Opera of Paris and performs frequently in French opera houses.

He will be accompanied by pianist Sheila Kibbe, chairman of the collaborative piano department at Boston University's School for the Arts. The have performed together since 1992.

Kibbe has also served as a vocal coach in the Boston University Opera Institute, and taught at the New England Conservatory.

She was the rehearsal pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood Festival Chorus. She has also served as principal keyboardist and vocal coach for the symphony and opera association in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Kibbe earned a bachelor's degree from Ithaca College and two masters of music degrees from Temple University.

The concert is free and open to the public.